The King is Dead

Thursday, August 28, 2014

As readers of this blog should be well aware, I’ve spent most of the
last year developing a setting called The King is Dead with an eye toward
marketing it for Savage Worlds.It takes
place in a quasi-18th century world where the middle and lower
clases are rising up to overthrow a literally vampiric aristocracy.All of the player characters belong to secret
societies -- inspired by such examples as the Bavarian Illuminati, the
Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, and the Sons of Liberty – that are conspiring
together to stage the revolution.

Early on, I decided that one of the societies should be
explicitly feminist.While the Bavarian Illuminati
believed in equal rights and education for women, they were still a male
organization and their in-game equivalent was always going to wind up looking
like a bunch of white guys in periwigs sitting around talking a bigger game
than they actually played.It always
seemed important to me that there be a secret society by women for women in
order to keep women’s rights front and center in the game’s themes.

Unfortunately, writing that society has always given me trouble.

Since the Freemasons and Illuminati are popularly associated
with Hermetic magic, it made sense to me to contrast the feminist society with
the Illuminati stand-ins by associating them with an “opposing” kind of
magic.In tabletop RPGs, the opposite of
wizardly magic has almost always been clerical magic, so I decided the feminist
group would be defined in terms of religion.

It seemed like a good idea, but it’s led to revision after
revision of the group and their name.They were originally the Sorority of Belquis (after the Queen of Sheba,
described in Islamic texts as a wise and powerful woman), then the Circle of
Isis (because explaining how a quasi-English cabal came to be named after a
Middle Eastern figure seemed overly complex, but referring back to the
popularity of the Isis cult in Roman times seemed much easier), and then the
Society of Minerva (in reference to both the goddess and the 18th
century publishing house, Minerva Press).Throughout these revisions, I’ve always had to shoehorn in explanations
for why these thoroughly modern women were looking to the goddesses of the
past.

I don’t hate the concept – in fact, I’d really prefer that I
didn’t have to throw it out and rewrite 4 or 5 pages of text – but I just haven't felt confident it. It's always felt off.I've always worried that – for lack of a
better word – it’s too witchy.

I recently realized that the Blue Stocking Society – an honest-to-goodness
early feminist organization – existed in the mid-18th century.I’m used to the term “bluestocking” from
Regency romance novels (where it is invariably an insult, and, yes, I read
Regency romance novels) and never really thought about where it
originated.It occurred to me that
modeling the feminist society more specifically on this historical original would
be a good idea.

Savage Worlds offers five core types of “magic:” wizardly
magic, clerical miracles, psionics or psychic powers, super powers, and weird
science.Throughout the development of
The King is Dead, I’ve always had psychic powers assigned to a
Fenian/Jacobite Celtic society in homage to the Highlander films and the
tradition of the second sight amongst the Celts.It has, honestly, always been an awkward fit
because of the way psionics work in Savage Worlds, and I’ve often considered ditching
that connection in order to link the pseudo-Celts to a pseudo-Druidism in order
to emphasize the religious divisions that have long existed in the British
Isles.

(Just to clarify for those coming in late, the state religion of the
vampire-dominated society is a Satanic high church comparable to Anglicanism or
Catholicism.)

If I change the psedo-Celts to pseudo-Druids, then that
would free up psionics for use by the Bluestocking Society.This appeals to me because psychic powers have
long been framed as at least a pseudo-science; this then makes the Bluestocking Society scientists. It makes them innovators. It makes them dedicated to progress.

It makes them (literally) self-empowered.

As much extra work as it causes me, I feel better about this already. A society dedicated to teaching women to overcome their problems through the force of their own minds and wills? That's a metaphor that works!

(And, yeah, it's a bit Golden Age Wonder Woman and a little bit Bene Gesserit, but those are comparisons I am way more happy to make.)

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

One of the challenges I decided to tackle in The King is Dead was to find a way of allowing Weird Scientists to invent some honest-to-goodness new technologies without bolting on new rules to the sleek Arcane Backgrounds rules of Savage Worlds. I finally cracked it. The solution: trappings!

New TrappingVehicle

One goal of the Zunft von Hohenheim is to bring mankind closer together by providing faster and safer means of transportation. The vehicle trapping can only be applied to the powers burrow, environmental protection, fly, and speed. The trapping allows a vehicle (boat, carriage, hot air balloon, locomotive) to take advantage of the power for a number of hours equal to the usual duration (plus any extra from additional Power Points). If the power allows for additional targets, those passengers must be taken into account when the device is built. A submersible ship might be built with the environmental protection power to allow the passengers to survive underwater or a hot air balloon might have wings and a rotor attached to allow it to fly with more control over its speed and destination.

Example: Dr. Kendra Jackman builds an auto-propelled balloon. She is a Veteran Weird Scientist with 15 Power Points. The basic cost of fly is 3 Power Points; Dr. Jackman wishes to include the rest of her cabal on his voyages, so she pays 5 points for additional targets and doubles the balloon’s speed from 6” to 12” for 3 points. She has now spent 11 Power Points, so adding in her remaining points for a total of 15 Power Points allows the balloon to fly with a crew of 6 for 7 hours at a speed of 4 miles per hour without the aid of the wind.

Sometimes this blog is a notepad, a place where I can jot
down thoughts and characters I want to use. This is one of those posts...

Robin and I just started a Victorian adventure campaign starring archaeologist (and occultist) Lady Atalanta Scarborough, and
there’s a few things I’d like to hit:

Quincey P. Morris, vampire cowboy

Dracula (duh)

Young Dr. Henry Jones (Sr.)

Sherlock Holmes references but no appearances by the Great
Detective himself (he’d be too insufferable); maybe Sebastian Moran, but not
Moriarty; maybe Sherlock Holmes’ other brother (not Mycroft, it would be the theoretical third
brother who inherited their father’s estates); definitely Lestrade.

A lost world story; I could actually tie this into the TimeBomb concept from MKST!!!, and come
up with a pseudo-plausible explanation for cave men and dinosaurs. Should I do Pleistocene mammals and dinosaurs
together, or separately? Separately, obviously. With the Time Bomb, there's no reason to limit ourselves to one lost world.

A "wild man" in the Mowgli/Tarzan tradition, but a pastiche instead of one of those two, so I can work in my own wacky ideas. What if the ape-man was literally half-ape (with the caveat, of course, that the apes aren't literally apes but rather shaggy hominids)? He would still probably look a lot like Christopher Lambert...

Ruritania! We've never touched on anything like the Ruritania plot in all our years of gaming. (And then it turns out all the crowned heads of Eastern Europe are foreign imposters.)

A Fu Manchu pastiche more in line with the sympathetic model of Planetary's Hark (though I've always sympathized greatly with Fu Manchu).

Myōjin Yahiko, master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, and Lady Snowblood. Or not. I have to try to keep Robin's character in the foreground; I'm running a game, not writing fan fiction. Pastiche! Pastiche! Pastiche!

"Zorro Jr." Damn it, there I go again.

El Dorado. I've got to find some excuse to get Lady Atalanta to the U.S.. Maybe lost Viking colonies, too?

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.It’s incredibly gratifying – I don’t think I’ve
ever been in demand like this, either as a writer or a person – but I am having
to learn new time-management skills.I
beg the indulgence of all of those who are relying on me.

Summer is a surprisingly busy time for me.Between work and family, there’s a heckuva
lot to do.With luck, the early autumn
lull at work and the beginning of the school year will free up some time.

Happy Wife, Happy Life

My top priority at all times in my life must be my lovely,
indulgent wife, +Robin English-Bircher.We’re both kind of estranged from our families and don’t have any
children, so we rely on each other with an intensity usually found only in
newlyweds.I don’t like getting too
personal on Wine and Savages, but
there’ve been some annoying setbacks around here this summer, and sometimes we
really, really have to go to the Texas hill Country for our mental health.We have friends in the wine industry up
there, and sometimes you really have to go “where everyone knows your name” (as
they sang on Cheers).

I an addition, of course, Robin writes for Texas Wine and Trail Magazine, Lifestyle of Comanche Trace, and her own
wonderful blog, Vitis Poema.If she’s going to support my writing, then it’s
only fair I support hers, and that sometimes means prioritizing going on
behind-the-scenes tours of wineries over writing about elfgames. (Oh, the horror!)

Writing

The #1 priority here is obviously The King is Dead.I am so close to finishing the initial player packet (that I think I’m going to instead call the Primer) that I am sorely tempted to go without sleep.Once I finish the oh-so-close-to-done text, I need to figure out a stopgap for my lack of proper desktop publishing software, insert some clip art, and get this off to Pinnacle so I can get approved as a licensee.I think I’ll release it as a pay-what-you-want product on DrivethruRPG; I feel pretty confident in the new rules and Edges, so I’d be happy to just get it out there and start drumming up publicity (and a little bit of cash).

The #2 priority is Steamscapes: Asia (since I will actually get paid for that), but +Eric Simon has assured me that I’m a little ahead on things there.When it comes time to ramp up production, I’m going to have some fun “research” materials to watch; Hulu has recently added Ryomaden, a live-action drama about Meiji revolutionary Ryoma Sakamoto, and Samurai Jam: Bakumatsu Rock, a completely absurd anime about the same guy that casts him as an anachronistic rebel rock star.

Meanwhile, +David Larkins, +David Schimpff, and I have been kicking around ideas to develop Miyamoto Academy Combatters into a full setting.Work on The King is Dead has kept me from keeping up with this as much as I might like for the last couple of weeks; I probably need to set a schedule where I split writing time between the projects.

Similarly, +Charles Akins has organized what promises to be a fun little round-robin blog thing.I’m not sure what I’m allowed to share about it, but that should appear in mid-September.

Finally, has anyone heard about the plans for the next +Savage Insider?I’m really looking forward to writing something for that, and am champing at the bit to find out what the theme will be.

Gaming

Duet gaming is, as always, an important part my marriage; it is, in the end, part and parcel of “Happy Wife, Happy Life.”Princess Errant crashed and burned, a victim to the juggling act I’ve gotten myself involved in.Making up a whimsical fantasy world on the fly was too much work, so we’re paring things back to a Victorian adventure setting.That should be a lot easier to do; I can not only draw on my own knowledge of Victorian adventure fiction, but also Gaslight, Rippers, and the old Pulp GM’s Toolkit.(Somebody remind me to write up my version of Quincey P. Morris, vampire cowboy.)

I also belong to a local gaming Meetup, the San Antonio Sci-Fi/Fantasy RPG Gaming Guild.For the first time in my nearly 41 years, I’m getting to be a player in someone else’s game.Right now, the only campaign I’ve been able to commit to is a wacky Ravenloft/World of Darkness: Dark Ages mash-up GM’d by +Alan VannesWell, I’m not sure it was meant to be wacky, but it’s gotten that way since my character got involved.(I may just be a terrible player; I’m not sure yet.)Every game is a milestone for me, as I had literally never played a PC for two consecutive sessions before this campaign.

Unfortunately, that all means that I’ve had very little time to develop the mecha/kaiju campaign I’m hoping to start with fellow local Savage +Curt Meyer.The need to stick closer to home now that Robin’s back at work might free up some time for that, but I also need to get a The King is Dead game going once The King is Dead Primer is complete. Maybe I can also conflate some campaign prep with an article somewhere or find some other way to monetize it; that would really help justify the time. Thankfully, some other members of the Meetup have expressed interest.

Friday, August 22, 2014

I want vampires in The
King is Dead to be able to have actual children of their own loins as a way
of explaining why they would form noble families and therefore behave in most
ways like the old European nobility.I
also want some “monsters” in the setting who are somewhat less dangerous than
vampires themselves.Thus, vampires in The King is Dead can sire dhampyres
(formerly dunpeals) – blood-drinking daywalkers gifted with increased strength,
rapid healing, and superior night vision.

I also want there to be no ambiguity in the righteousness of
slaying vampires, thus allowing players to indulge in some of the excesses of the
French Revolution without any moral qualms.Therefore, vampirism in The King
is Dead is a choice.When a vampire
accepts the Gift of Sathaniel, he receives a vision of The King of the World in which Sathaniel lays out – plainly and
honestly – that becoming a vampire means becoming a predator of mankind, it
means becoming a murderer and beast, it means selling your soul and becoming a
monster.

Obviously, a fetus in the womb cannot make a contract with
Sathaniel.A dhampyre might be born with
the same thirst for blood as its father, but it never makes a conscious choice
to become a monster.Raised in a
torturous mix of privilege and abuse, taught from the earliest age that
vampires are superior beings and that a dhampyre’s very reason to exist is to
serve its father until it becomes a vampire itself, it is inevitable that most
dhampyres will eventually choose to make a pact with Sathaniel.It is inevitable that most dhampyres will
choose to become monsters, but they are not born that way.

I realized I was being racist by casting all dhampyres as
bad guys, by denying players the chance to play dhampyres who chose to rebel
against their rearing.I was choosing
Nature over Nurture, and that’s not what I believe in.

So dhampyres are now a playable race in The King is Dead.Enjoy!

Dhampyre (homo sapiens sanguinus)

Dhampyres are born when a vampire deflowers a human maiden. Bringing a dhampyre child to term is difficult and requires regular feeding on vampire blood; because of this, the vast majority of dhampyres are nobility, born and bred to carry on their ancestors’ bloodlines. Vampires made from dhampyres are more likely to inherit their sires’ same powers (rather than spontaneously mutating) so the vampire houses of Malleus breed themselves as carefully as hunting dogs and horses.

Raised amidst the selfish and violent world of vampires, most dhampyres become just as cruel and psychotic as their parents. They are, however, born with free will and are not inherently monsters. Some few dhampyres have seen the value of a world of equality and freedom and joined the revolution, but it is difficult for dhampyres to rise above their brutal origins.

When a woman is impregnated by a vampire, she must endure nine months of illness and pain. The unborn child constantly feeds on its mother’s own blood, and so the mother must imbibe regular quantities of fresh (or preferably vampire) blood in order to not be devoured by the fetus. Many noblewomen enduring a dhampyre pregnancy are practically confined to their beds for the duration, and most wind up as hopeless thralls afterward. Commoners with inconvenient dhampyre bastards are often left to die.

Once born, the infant dhampyre is a bloodthirsty beast. Most are tightly swaddled to prevent them from attacking the household, and many are chained or caged until they can begin to control their hunger around the age of five. They live in darkened isolation for much of their childhoods, cut off from interaction with any who are not servants of family because of their inhuman strength and appetite. Dhampyres in their teens have usually gained control over their bloodthirst, and begin to be introduced into proper society.

A dhampyre’s “coming out” is when life changes radically for male and female dhampyres. Male dhampyres go off to boarding schools and university, are taught the skills to act as their fathers’ daylight agents, and become the most sought-after bachelors in Hammerstadt. Female dhampyres – practically incapable of having children of their own due to their own bodies’ bloodthirst, and therefore politically worthless – are sent to convents where they will become “brides of Sathaniel” in honor of Salome, the princess who was given the Gift of Sathaniel in order to give it to mankind.

Many male dhampyres will eventually be given the Gift of Sathaniel themselves, but female dhampyres are rarely elevated to unlife. Some rare nuns achieve political power as abbesses and some rare dhampyre noblewomen find themselves (by happenstance or intrigue) as the sole heirs of their families, but for most female dhampyres life is one form of imprisonment after another.

Dhampyre Racial Traits

The Blood is the Life: While dhampyres lack the astonishing regenerative abilities of vampires, they may make a natural Healing roll once per day (instead of once per week) on any day in which they feed on fresh blood.

Feed: Dhampyres must drink at least a pint of fresh blood per day, just like their vampire fathers. This is treated in most ways as the Habit [Major] Hindrance, but cannot be bought off. A dhampyre Exhausted by going without blood may make a Spirit roll at -2; if successful, the player may choose to have the dhampyre simply perish of starvation, but if the roll is failed, the character goes Berserk (as per the Edge) and will hunt friend and foe alike until its bloodthirst is sated.

Long-Lived: Dhampyres do not begin to feel the effects of old age until they are 150 years old; many live naturally into the low 200s.

Low-Light Vision: Dhampyres ignore penalties for bad lighting in all but pitch-black conditions.

Outsider: Dhampyres are distrusted by humans and seen as servants (at best) by vampires. They suffer a -2 modifier to Charisma amongst all but their fellow dhampyres.

Strength of the (Half-)Dead: Dhampyre player characters start with a d6 in Strength rather than a d4.

Weakness (Sunlight): Dhampyre eyes are sensitive to the sun. They suffer a -2 penalty to all tasks while in sunlight unless wearing dark glasses.

New Edge

Mark of the Beast Requirements: Background, dhampyre or Noble

The vampire heritage is strong in this hero. The character’s fingernails grow into graceful but dangerous claws and her teeth are wicked fangs. Her unarmed attacks cause Str+d4 damage and she may bite a grappled foe for the same. Such obvious signs of vampiric ancestry will unnerve those in the rebellion who already distrust you.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Now that I feel greatly rejuvenated after a fantastically productive block of writing on The King is Dead yesterday, I feel I can finally return to sharing some of the work on that setting on the blog. I'm going to start a series of posts taking Gothic archetypes (courtesy of TV Tropes) and stat them up for The King is Dead's somewhat truncated version of the Savage Worlds Skill list. Keep in mind that The King is Dead is an action-horror setting, and so Guts and Sanity are not used; GMs wishing to work these archetypes into a more traditionally terrifying setting may wish to add those Setting Rules.

"Ever
found yourself at a huge mansion in the middle of a torrential rainstorm?
Chances are the door was opened to you by a Creepy Housekeeper. This character
spends much of her time walking around a large manor house cleaning, cooking,
being fanatically devoted to her master, and scaring off any new female
inhabitants of the house. Although she often welcomes hapless visitors, chances
are they will be either murdered or scared off by the end of a terrifying
night. She will be common in murder mysteries/tales of the supernatural,
although often subverted for comedy."

Gerda Mortenson has effectively been the mistress
of the remote estate of Greyholme – ancestral hall of the Greystorm line of the
Blut von Heinrich – for two decades.Thrall to the Count von Greystorm since her teens, she thinks of their
relationship in far more intimate terms than does her master.She is possessive of the manor house and its
staff, and is alarmed by the arrival of the count’s dhampyre son; the savage
child she whipped into submission is now a a grown man who will not brook her
interference in his rights.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (The Circle Curse and The Jewels in the Forest)Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser leave Lankhmar at the beginning of the vignette The Circle Curse, returning three years later after a series of adventures that take them practically from one end of the world called Nehwon to the other (and then back again). By the time we meet them again at the beginning of The Jewels in the Forest (originally published as Two Sought Adventure as well as being the first published Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story and the beginning of their adventures proper), they have become living legends. As Leiber wrote:

“The names of the Gray Mouser and the Northerner Fafhrd were not unknown in the lands around Lankhmar – and in proud Lankhmar, too. Their taste for strange adventure, their mysterious comings and goings, and their odd sense of humor were matters that puzzled almost all men alike.” (Leiber, The Jewels in the Forest; emphasis mine).

In other words, in the space of a vignette that equates to a James Bond film’s pre-credits scene or a martial arts movie’s training montage, they have risen from Seasoned to Legendary (and 20 XP beyond)…

By the time Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (no longer Mouse)
finally meet on the smoky streets of Lankhmar, they have both made names for
themselves as independent thieves of guile and skill.When the Thieves’ Guild hunts down the Twain
for daring to rob the robbers, it is Fafhrd's and the Gray Mouser’s lovers who
pay the price.Chastened by this
tragedy, the two leave Lankhmar, vowing to never return…

Monday, August 18, 2014

As has been revealed at Bleeding Cool and on Google+, Pinnacle Entertainment now hols the license to Fritz Leiber's seminal Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories and will be releasing The Savage World of Lankhmar in the near future. I have mixed feelings about this -- can it capture the weird, dreamlike feel of the stories? will Pinnacle's self-imposed PG-13 approach unsex my beloved Nehwon? -- but mainly I'm mad I never got around to posting my conversions of the Twain before this. I've wanted to write about them since the beginning of the blog! Oh well, better late than never...

﻿

Fafhrd (The Snow Women)

Novice Wild Card (No Experience)

A young skald who yearns for a life of adventure and freedom, Fafhrd nearly misses his chance to leave behind the Cold Wastes for the city...

The Gray Mouser first appears as "Mouse," a street urchin turned apprentice wizard. A tragic interruprtion in his studies means he will never progress far as a mage, but it does send him wending toward Lankhmar...

I was able to keep his Strength and Vigor at d6 by shunting 2 Attribute points each to them (raising them to d8 before imposing the Elderly Hindrance penalties) and then I used 2 points from Hindrances to buy Smarts up to d6.

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